BELIEVE IN YOURSELF

You weren’t an accident.You weren’t mass produced.
You aren’t an assembly-line product.You were deliberately planned, specifically gifted, and lovingly positioned on the ffarth by the Master Craftsman.
MAX LUCADO
Best-selling author

If you are going to be successful in creating the life of your dreams, you have to believe that you are capable of making it happen. You have to believe you have the right stuff, that you are able to pull it off. You have to believe in yourself. Whether you call it self-esteem, self-confidence, or self-assurance, it is a deep-seated belief that you have what it takes—the abilities, inner re-sources, talents, and skills to create your desired results.

BELIEVING IN YOURSELF IS AN ATTITUDE

Believing in yourself is a choice. It is an attitude you develop over time. Although it helps if you had positive and supportive parents, the fact is that most of us had run-of-the-mill parents who inadvertently passed on to us the same limiting beliefs and negative conditioning they grew up with.

But remember, the past is the past. There is no payoff for blaming them for your current level of self-confidence. It’s now your responsibility to take charge of your own self-concept and your beliefs. You must choose to believe that you can do anything you set your mind to—anything at all—because, in fact, you can. It might help you to know that the latest brain research now indicates that with enough positive self-talk and positive visualization combined with the proper training, coaching, and practice, anyone can learn to do almost anything.

Of the hundreds of super successful people I have interviewed for this and other books, almost every one of them told me, “I was not the most gifted or talented person in my field, but I chose to believe anything was possible. I studied, practiced, and worked harder than the others, and that’s how I got to where I am.” If a 20-year-old Texan can take up the luge and become an Olympic athlete, a college dropout can become a billionaire, and a dyslexic student who failed three grades can become a best-selling author and televi-sion producer, then you, too, can accomplish anything if you will simply be¬lieve it is possible. If you assume in favor of yourself and act as if it is possible, then you will do the things that are necessary to bring about the result. If you believe it is impossible, you will not do what is necessary, and you will not produce the result. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

THE CHOICE OF WHAT TO BELIEVE IS UP TO YOU

Stephen J. Cannell failed first, fourth, and tenth grades. He couldn’t read and comprehend like other kids in his class could. He would spend 5 hours with his mother studying for a test and then fail it. When he asked his friend who got an A how long he had studied for the test, he replied, “I didn’t.” Stephen concluded that he just wasn’t intelligent. “But I simply decided, as an act of will, to put it out of my mind,” he told me. “I simply refused to think about it. Instead I focused my energies on what I was good at, and that was football. If it hadn’t been for football, which I excelled at, I don’t know what would have happened to me. I got my self-esteem from playing sports.”
Putting all his energy into football, he earned interscholastic honors as a running back. From football, he learned that if he applied himself, he could achieve excellence.

Later he was able to transfer that belief in himself to his career, which oddly enough turned out to be writing scripts for television. Eventually he formed his own production studio, where he created, produced, and wrote over 350 scripts for 38 different shows, including The A-Team, The Rockford Files, Baretta, 21 Jump Street, The Commish, Renegade, and Silk Stalkings. At the height of his studio career, he had over 2,000 people on his payroll. And if that isn’t enough, after he sold his studio he went on to write 11 best-selling novels. Stephen is a prime example of the fact that it is not what life hands you but how you respond to it, mentally and physically, that matters most.